Herenton cuts to the race

Willie Herenton, the former mayor of Memphis, doesn’t beat around the bush when he talks about his primary challenge against Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.). He’ll tell you straight up that the election is about one thing: race.

Herenton’s campaign slogan — “We just want one” — refers to his assertion that an African-American deserves to hold at least one of the state’s nine House seats or two Senate seats. In case anyone still doesn’t get the point, on his campaign website Herenton provides a helpful tab titled “The Real Picture,” which offers photos of the blindingly white Tennessee congressional delegation, with a head shot of himself in the 9th District slot.

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The headline of the page? “This Picture Looks Better.”

“My primary motivation for running for the 9th Congressional District is that I strongly believe that one of the hallmarks of the American democracy is a representative form of democracy,” Herenton told POLITICO in an interview. “The current composition of the 11-member Tennessee delegation lacks the appropriate diversity that’s consistent with our values for a representative government.”

Herenton even acknowledged that Cohen had “worked hard to align his votes with the interests of his district.” But Herenton argued that, as an African-American, he has “a greater sensitivity to the needs of this district than Cohen,” who is also a lifelong Memphis resident.

The idea that race could play such a central role in an election is a discordant note in the era of President Barack Obama. But in the black-majority, Memphis-based seat Cohen holds, it’s been standard operating practice ever since the white, Jewish former state senator emerged from a crowded Democratic primary in 2006 to capture the nomination to succeed Rep. Harold Ford Jr.

Cohen, who is accustomed to criticism that he is an interloper in a seat designed for an African-American candidate, said he wasn’t surprised by the longtime mayor’s challenge in the Aug. 5 primary. Armed with an “A” rating from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, he said his constituents know he’s voted in line with their values.

“I think people do not vote on race any longer. I think that’s proven by my last four elections,” Cohen told POLITICO. “I think that this is an old game that’s past its time. I don’t really address it — I just do my job.” The congressman also faced a racially tinged primary challenge in 2008, when attorney Nikki Tinker, who finished a close second in the contentious 2006 open-seat Democratic primary, launched a barrage of attacks but nevertheless lost to Cohen in a landslide.

Unlike Tinker, who was viewed by some locals as a carpetbagging candidate who ran an uneven campaign, Herenton has deep local roots and widespread name recognition. He was elected as the city’s first African-American mayor in 1991, a position he was elected to four more times before stepping down last year to launch his congressional bid. Prior to that, he served as superintendent of the Memphis city schools.